From my "C1270 1913" thread we had a some interesting information posted by our NZ cousins. I was talking to Ray Green and we discussed if this could be used to track shipments of 1913 cars from Canada via engine number batches. I have started to list these engine numbers from what we know where the motors (originals only, not restamps or anything in doubt) were found. You need to add what you guys know you have and perhaps this might lead us to some new information. Let's give this forum a whirl at full throttle and see where it goes!

NZ C320, C340, C1177, C1234, C1239, C2302, C3016.

Australia NSW C323, C325, C1202, C1270, C5082.

Vic C1260, C5168

QLD C5275

SA C410, C1651, C3650, C4589, C5160

WA C1907, C3249

TAS C4010

Keep adding boys!!! Add to the state where the motor or block was found, not the state it is in today. If in doubt, don't add it. Already we can see the boat went from NZ to Sydney.

More from the New Zealand Register [MTFCNZ]. C4312 Tour-about. C4391 Tourer. C4474 Tourer [at the time this was recorded it was owned by Dennis King who Ray Green has mentioned being in possession of C1213. Now deceased I believe.] C5274 Roadster. C5310 Roadster. C5314 Roadster. C5347 Engine Block. C6269 Engine Block. C6448 Roadster [mine]. C6449 Delivery. A big gap to C11938, a tourer. Then five in the C12... series. How far do you want to go, as the last recorded number reaches C748617 [truck]? It would be interesting to find out when the change was made in the blocks for the '26 cars too, somewhere around C590... as far as I can tell.

Hi Guys, first off John, NZ may take a place in this race and its not a race but I can hit you with another 15 numbers and casting dates so you aint winning no cup and its great to keep throwing numbers but until the lot are put into numerical order by country and number it will prove very little. John I am using NZ as this PC of mine keeps rejecting Zealand. Alan, your statement that the ship passed NZ is shot down in the first 300 blocks with C320 in NZ and C323 and C325 in NSW and the numbers keep moving across the country. Look for your self on this one with others in NZ and within 100 numbers here also sheer logistics would have the running cargo on one ship as they would not send one ship to NZ and another to Australia as it would be double costing and I could see the bean counters at Ford letting that happen. One thing that this dose not take into account with the Australian blocks is the movement of blocks from state to state in the last 30 years as two of my blocks came from Victoria and I sent one to South Australia. On that note David put the numbers on paper then see what you get... Ray

John, C11938 and C22309 are invalid as they are 1914 production, 11938 should have a January to February casting date but if it follows the rule of first block in to storage and last block out as we talking dead of winter and the lakes are frozen over then they could have a November or December date and 22309 should have a September 1914 casting date give or take a few weeks.

Guys, I enjoy a bit of banter, but this is not a competition. It is about information sharing so we can better understand our Canadian Fords. Thank you very much to our NZ friends for jumping on board so quickly. I stress we must know where the block or motor was found; not where it is now. For example we have a 1913 tourer here where the motor came from WA. I have added the number to the WA figures.

I know some of the numbers are 1914 too, but have added them because the information was forthcoming and it seems a logical extension of the research. I look forward to members like Ray adding their vast files. If we can keep this thread running I think it will be of great interest and another step closer to unravelling the Canadian Ford Colonial past.

New Zealand - were all shipments to a single port? Did they ship to both islands?

Broken Hill - it has been raised what if a block or motor was found in Broken Hill, NSW? As Duncan & Fraser from Adelaide had the distributorship for Broken Hill I will add them to the SA list. I hope you all agree.

Ray, before you jump down my throat, I did not state that the ship came to Australia first. I merely suggested that the ship might have come to Australia to unload first.It may all depend on what other cargo was involved, or do we have info that the ships carried only T models?

In your comments on the numbers as shipped are you saying that the cars were shipped in Numerical order? I can't quite get the drift of your thoughts on that.

C227 was sold new in Feilding (correct spelling) in the same car it is still in, still in the same region. I believe Ross Benedict's motor C22309 was found north of the Wairarapa, in an area known as the Tararua District (north of Wellington). John Stokes

Alan, I am not jumping down any ones throat or yours, I,m too fat to fit anyway so please do not read things that are not there.. "quote" (Keep in mind the ship may not have called in to New Zealand on the way to Australia, but may have come here first).... it has been shown that the boat went to NZ first as they have early blocks and later blocks within 100 numbers followed by each state in turn as per above, when one of the Victorian members adds their numbers it will change the whole thing as they have blocks in the C2XX range and I am surprised they are not here. The finial part of this puzzle would be if we could find a set of numbers from South Africa as its last port of call before going back to Canada. Now in modern car delivery the cars are selected and just driven on the boat as each country's order as per colour and model and the body/Vin numbers do not come into play till they are sent to the dealers as per orders but the Vin is still listed on the shipping papers. Taking into mind that it would not be drive on but they would have to been in boxes so a couple of hundred stacked inside the ship and there are photos of boxes being unloaded, they would come out on last in first out and there would so the numbers would be either way but still in close order. Numerical Order.. the cars would be moved out as quick possible which was Fords practice so they would not sit in a ware house and they would take one now and two later, a ship holds X number of crate so that many crates would leave in one go so the cars should be close together off the line, not car C300 followed by Car C1250. I had a photo of creates being unloaded but can not find it, did I give it to you David??? Now I,m off the soap box and going to check numbers in my older files.... Ray

David, I can hit you with eleven plus more 1914 numbers but they would not be 1913 as per your guide lines in the heading of this thread and really dont come into this list but would only prove the shipping details. Why not start one thread for 1914 and even 1915 as each year would be more useful to the members and your research than dumping them on here. My numbers are nearly thirty years old now so they should be close to where the blocks were found and you are right about the blocks from broken Hill. From memory the Mitchell Library hold many shipping documents of that period with the ships contents and were they were going but I have no idea were to start looking..... Ray

Ray, haven't heard from you for a while, hope you are well. Just some thoughts on tracking the few later dates like the 14+15, shipping was in a whole new way of doing things by then, David would be tracking a milk run in 1913 via Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope with the demand for sales back then spread at several ports of call, buy 1914 the Panama Canal was open, larger demand for sales and one off port drop off's I think would put closer concentration of numbers like say Melbourne, Adelaide or Sydney. Anyway just my thoughts on it.

Hi Kerry, I,m here because David asked me and my love of the 1913 T and a chance to get my soap box out, I do watch the threads from time to time, I,m going ok but we have good days and bad days but we just keep going and the horses are a full time job plus looking after the property when its a one person show and thank you for asking. David, here is the photo that I could not find and I do not know if I gave you a copy but if you like Santa can come again and it will answer some more questions for you but it is 1914, I will dig some more after and see what other photos I have from that time that I have never used... Ray The photo text is Ford cars unloading in Sydney, ex S.S. Batsford, 8th June 1914 The Batsford carried the largest shipment of cars ever brought to Australia... 480 of which 402 were "Fords"...

In August, 1913 the SS Devon was wrecked at the entrance to Wellington Harbour. It had Model Ts aboard (as well as a bunch of other imports). Teh ship had loaded at Montreal, sailed for Australia and then on to New Zealand. Without checking, I think it went to Melbourne. It then crossed the Tasman Sea to Auckland, and then on to Wellington.

We do know that goods were taken off in Australia, and others loaded. What we don't know is what those goods were.

If someone in Aus was able to see if Model Ts had been unloaded there from the Devon when it called, in early-mid August, that would settle the matter.

Can't find anything in relation to what would have been loaded in the SS devon at Melbourne, may be just un-loaded or 8x T's loaded, it was a british passenger and refrigerated cargo steamer, holding 10,000 sheep carcases but it's port of call for loading was Sydney or Brisbane for that, the 8xT's and some farming machinery on board when ran aground in NZ, was salvaged the following month.

Kerry It may have called into Sydney - maybe even Brisbane. It had no fare-paying passengers on board (if I recall correctly) and more that 8 Model Ts. It would not have had sheep carcasses (that's like taking sand to the beach!). It did have farm machinery, plus sewing machines, a new invention called the vacuum cleaner, musical instruments, etc. The ship was never salvaged but much of the cargo was. John

John and Kerry, here is a chance to get a nos T, never been driven, a bit soggy, could need some extra care and well protected with fish oil. If I get a chance tonight I will see what I can find in the shipping newspapers. Ray PS... John I would like to talk to you please...

Now I know this is completely off the subject, but here is a little photographic evidence relating to the wreck of the Devon....

The Devon went ashore where the lower lighthouse is, to right of picture (the upper lighthouse, the first in NZ, could not be seen in the stormy, misty conditions and contributed to the grounding of the ship).

Photo of Devon taken from upper lighthouse, soon after she grounded.

This last photo was taken 2 years ago, overlooking the site - nothing left! Not even a soggy Model T wheel.

John, your input re mixed cargoes and ports of unloading/loading was what I was thinking when I suggested to David that Australia may have been on the way to New Zealand. The 'backload' of cargo may have had an influence on the order of unloading.

Ray, the 'Batsford' cargo of cars is interesting. Would/could that have been the only cargo it carried? Was it the total cargo unloaded in Australia, or were there more cars to be unloaded elsewhere? Your point about numbers being in sequence, last on first off, etc makes sense. However, do we have any evidence that the production line made runs of the same type of car, eg tourers, or were they a mixed bunch like the production lines of today, sedans,wagons, utes etc all together. If they were done in batches of the same type, then there would be differences in number sequence depending on body style, and David's engine number sequence could be all mixed up.

I throw these thoughts in only to keep us open to varying possibilities.

You raise a great question about the ship either too or from NZ. If everybody contributes the motor or engines they all have or know about we will be a long way towards understanding a possible answer.

I can't see there can be any order to the numbers from Canada to Australia or NZ that helps in any way. There are just too many variables. Yes we got 1913 cars in 1913, 1914 in 1914 and 1915 in 1915 but they were being delivered in small batches by lots of ships Which went on different routes, there probably were cars with adjoining numbers off loaded at one stop, the runs could have only been a few hundred as thats all the ship could take on.

If the cars left in number order from the factory, they would be shipped by train to the docks. First number on goes to the bottom last number is on top. So if they stopped at one port the late numbers came off and the early numbers went on.

Every state or country order different amounts of stock and also different numbers of Roadsters or Tourers. The largest amount on one ship was only 400 plus. So there were lots of ships.

Each ship held different amounts depending on size.

Each ship travelled at a different speed and possibly hit different weather conditions. Some were sail only some steam assisted.

Ships could go either by Cape Horn or Cape of Good Hope. If they went via Africa they would have stopped at SA first then Vic NSW and Qld then maybe onto NZ but as they carried few cars each ship may have only delivered a batch to one port.

If a ship loaded first it got possibly a run of numbers but it may have been followed by another that took on a lot more cars and travelled faster and arrived first.

Often there were problems with weather and failures on the ship requiring stops to do repairs. There was even a case of one ship which lost a man overboard which probably resulted in travel time being longer.

It would be interesting to do an era shipping check if ship names from Canada are known. For NZ & Australia, they could have come from Vancouver but I believe shipments did also originate from the Eastern Seaboard so, prior to 1914, they must have come via Cape Horn like the old Tea Clippers. After this, the Panama Canal must have been the route. I have always thought separate ships came to NZ & Australia, but have no evidence of this. By the early Model A era,NZ shipments were offloaded at Auckland, Wellington then down to Timaru. Re Sth Africa,a photo in Ford Life from the mid '30's shows mass loading of crates all marked Éast Africa' which is maybe evidence that was a sole destination with a different route.